The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Friday, September 21, 2012

Read the article in the original עבריתRead the article in Italiano (translated by Yehudit Weisz, edited by Angelo Pezzana)Read the article in français(translated by Danilette)

In the past, the United States was the "glory of the world", mainly after it came to the aid of Europe in the Second World War, the victory over Germany and Japan in 1945, and the American success in establishing a democratic state in South Korea (1953) following the war against the communists, who were allied with China and the USSR. However, the glory of the United States has faded during the last generation. Historians point to Vietnam as the beginning of the process of decline; the war lasted 16 years (1959-1975), cost the lives of almost 60,000 American soldiers and ended in a disastrous American rout and Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, falling to the Vietcong, the militia of communist North Vietnam.

The Vietnam War left parts of American society with a lack of will to fight for the values of freedom and democracy, especially if it's a question of fighting in countries outside of the United States. The U.S. army took part in several wars since 1975, but in the Middle East its performances were not always satisfactory. As a result of this, the military strength of the United States does not make much of an impression in the Arab and Islamic world, and even back in September of 1970 the terrorists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine did not hesitate to hijack American and British jets to Jordan and blow them up for all the world to see.

In 1973 the American ambassador, his deputy and the deputy ambassador of Belgium were kidnapped in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan by the Palestinian organization "Black September", and were executed on the personally telephoned orders of Yasir Arafat. Despite the fact that the Americans recorded the discussion and knew all of the details in real-time, the humiliation by the terrorist silenced them and Arafat subsequently became (with the help of a few bleeding-heart Israelis who were taken in by his charisma and his lies) a "darling of the peace groupies". He mocked the Americans, fooled them without blinking an eye, and they believed him. The Iranian audacity towards the United States knows no bounds: In October 2011, Iran attempted to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador in Washington, no less than the capital of the United States. The Iranians have no problem calling the United States "the Great Satan", which has only one meaning: that holy war must be waged against the United States - a jihad for the sake of Allah, which will only end with the destruction of the government of the United States and the conversion of its citizens to Shi'ite Islam.

In April 1983 Hizb'Allah - the long arm of Iran in Lebanon - blew up the embassy of the United States, in another breach of its sovereignty, and killed 63 people, and in October of that same year demolished Marine headquarters in Beirut killing 241 American soldiers and citizens. The American reaction was to flee from Lebanon, which very much encouraged Hizb'Allah and its patrons in Iran and Syria, and caused the United States to appear as a country without a backbone. A month before this, in March of 1983, Hizb'Allah attacked the United States embassy in Kuwait, and in June, 1985 Hizb'Allah organized the hijacking of an American passenger jet of TWA. In June, 1996 Hizb'Allah carried out an attack on an American military base in Saudi Arabia, and all of these attacks carried out by Shi'ite Hizb'Allah with Iranian inspiration were left unanswered by the Americans.

Qadhaffi's Libya also contributed its part in aggression against the U.S., with the attack on the disco in Berlin where a number of American soldiers were killed as they were enjoying a night out in 1986. The aggression was answered with an attack on Qadhaffi's palace, and although his adopted daughter was killed, he did not stand down: In 1988 he organized a revenge attack on a Pan Am jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing almost 300 people. What was his punishment? Nothing, until 2011, when the United States was dragged into attacking Libya, almost reluctantly.

On the Sunni side of the Islamic equation, they saw the American weakness toward Iran and Hizb'Allah, and also decided to increase the pressure on the United States: in August, 1990, Saddam Hussein disregarded the warnings of the United States and invaded Kuwait, one of the West's main suppliers of oil, claiming that Kuwait is a province of Iraq. In this case, the West became outraged, and led by the U.S., in January, 1991, entered a war that successfully liberated Kuwait, but did not liberate Iraq and the world from Saddam Hussein. This war caused the detractors of the U.S. to draw two conclusions: One is that the West goes out to war not for idealism but rather for interests, and in the case of Kuwait, oil was the causative factor. The second conclusion is that the West is afraid of causing regime change, no matter how bad the regime may be, because of the fear that the successor will be even worse. However, in this war there was an additional American failure: there were Americans, perhaps CIA operatives, who hinted to the Shi'ites in Southern Iraq that if they rebel against Saddam, the United States will support them and overthrow him. In March 1991 the Shi'ite rebellion against Saddam (who had been vanquished in Kuwait) began, but he put down the rebellion with great cruelty, costing the lives of tens of thousands of Shi'ites, and the United States did not lift a finger. The effect of the American betrayal of the Shi'ites of Iraq at that time continues until today to influence the way the Shi'ites in Iraq relate to the United States.

In October 1993 an American commando force entering the city by helicopter, tried to capture two terrorists in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. The helicopter was shot down by the Somalis, who then killed 18 American soldiers and defiled their bodies. All of this was recorded on camera without fear of enraging the Americans.

Bin Laden, after his mujahedin succeeded in throwing out the Soviets from Afghanistan and accelerating the collapse of the Soviet Union, decided to turn the American weapons against the United States, "the world leader of heresy, permissiveness and materialistic culture" according to bin Laden's description of the U.S.. In December 1992 jihadists attacked hotels near the port of Aden where soldiers of the United States were housed. In February 1993 the first attempt to collapse the twin towers was carried out in New York. In August 1998 the United States embassies in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, and Dar as-Salam the capital of Tanzania, were blown up, killing 224 and leaving thousands of wounded. In 2000 al-Qaeda attacked the frigate USS Cole off the coast of Yemen, killing 17 soldiers. On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda organized a series of attacks in the United States on symbols of commerce and government, which caused about 3000 fatalities.

In the aura of the beginning years of the 2000's in which the United States was perceived as vulnerable despite its great strength, Islamist terrorists did not hesitate to slaughter American citizens and soldiers on camera, for example Daniel Pearl in 2002; Nick Berg, Eugene Armstrong and Jack Hensley in 2004.

As a result of the attacks of September 11, 2001 the United States entered into an all-out war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime of Afghanistan, which sponsored the organization. A blitz war brought about the collapse of the regime and the dismantling of hundreds of al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan. The coalition led by the United States achieved total control of the entire area of Afghanistan within months, but today - after more than eleven years of Sisyphean fighting, and at the cost of much blood and treasure - the soldiers of the United States and their allies control only about 5 percent of the area of the state. It seems that Afghanistan is about to become the second Vietnam.

Later, an international coalition led by the United States conquered Iraq in 2003, but since then, organizations who adopted the ideology of al-Qaeda, challenged the stability that the United States tried to create in Iraq, by carrying out hundreds of attacks that killed thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens. Iran, its eastern neighbor, also entered into the Iraqi turmoil, training, arming and financing Shi'ites who remembered well the American betrayal of March 1991, and between the years 2003 and 2008, caused many American fatalities. American intelligence had innumerable proofs of Iranian involvement in the killing of American soldiers, but the United States never ventured to even the account with Iran for this, because of the fear that it would have to open a new front, in addition to those of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Indeed, the greatest American failure to date is Iraq: the president of the United States, George W. Bush, announced on May 1, 2003 - five weeks after the war in Iraq broke out - "Mission Accomplished". The number of American fatalities was then about 170. After another five years had passed, four thousand five hundred Americans had fallen by the time the war was indeed more or less over, and the Iraqi political system that the Americans created is unstable and fragile. Over all, American taxpayers poured into Iraq more than a trillion (a thousand billion) dollars. President Obama, as he promised, withdrew the United States soldiers from Iraq in December 2011, and as a result of the American flight, Iraq today is effectively controlled by Iran: Despite the international ban on Iran to export weapons, and on Syria to import them, Iran supplies the murderous regime in Syria with weapons, ammunition and fighters who are air-lifted over the skies of Iraq. The Americans know this and don't do a thing.

Another American failure, no less important than the failure in Iraq, is the failure to stop the military nuclear program of Iran. We only need remember the Soviet missile crisis in Cuba (1962) to see the difference between then and now: Then, the determination shown by John F. Kennedy, president of the United States, caused the Soviets to fold up within two weeks, while today, the softness that the world presents - led by the United States - vis à vis Iran, has enabled the state of the Ayatollahs to progress in their military nuclear program for more than 15 years.

In the past, Iran has conducted exercises where missiles were shot from submarines, and with the use of these missiles equipped with a nuclear warhead under the waters of the ocean it will be able to dictate to the whole world the conditions of its surrender. The world condemns, denounces, warns and threatens, but all of these threats are just empty talk, as long as there is not a credible threat behind it. Economic sanctions are not effective when dealing with fateful questions of dictatorial regimes, because they know how to shift the painful effect of the sanctions onto the citizens, thus the ruling elite remains untouched. Nevertheless, the United States under Obama is afraid of drawing red lines for the regime of the Ayatollahs, who are hurtling ahead towards acquisition of the bomb, which may be able to reach as far as New York, not just Tel Aviv.

Thus, in a continual process of declining strength, the United Stated has become a paper tiger in dealing with the Arab and Islamic world. The Islamic bandits draw strength from American weakness, and it is precisely Obama's attempts to engage the Islamists, beginning with the Cairo speech (June 2009), that increases the Islamists' demands from him. Obama also took the opportunity to openly reveal his political ineptitude: On the same day that he was Mubarak's guest of honor, he met in Cairo with the bitterest rivals of the president of Egypt, leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, and this was no less than a knife in the back of his host. Insulted and hurt, Mubarak did not attend Obama's speech, offering the weak excuse that his grandson had died a short time before.

On this background of American weakness are additional facts, which the people of the Middle East see well: North Korea does as it pleases with its nuclear plans and missiles, despite Western and Japanese objections. In the past the United States acceded to the nuclearization of India and Pakistan, and even forgave the head of the Pakistani nuclear program, Abdul Qader Khan, for establishing a black market for nuclear instrumentation, materials and knowledge, and distributing his wares to the highest bidder. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, its nuclear scientists searched for a livelihood in other countries, and the Nuclear Non-proliferation Pact became an almost worthless piece of paper, mainly because the United States under Clinton "fell asleep on guard duty" for the years of the 90's.
The murder of the American ambassador in Libya this month was only another link in the chain of American failure to understand the Middle East: ironically, the ambassador who was the liaison between the American government and the rebels against Qadhaffi was the target of the automatic fire of the Libyan Islamists who dragged his body through the streets of Benaghazi.

And here comes the ridiculous film, produced in the United States, that no one with minimal taste would continue to watch after the first minute. In the United States, freedom of creativity, freedom of speech and freedom of expression are protected by law, and these freedoms are considered of utmost value in the eyes of most Americans. These freedoms afford the creators of films the full right to create and say in them whatever they want (short of libel), including criticism of historical figures and religious ideas. Despite this, the authorities of the United States quickly arrested the creator of the film, only because of the current storm and turbulence in the Muslim world. The United States has again proved that it is vulnerable to extortion and will surrender to violence if it comes from a Muslim source.

Islamic zealots sense the American weakness and increase their pressure. The Americans have adopted the culture of "political correctness" that makes them "be nice" even if the one they are dealing with is not nice at all. They enable Islamic organizations to act freely in the United States, to establish mosques almost without limitations and preach violence against the "infidel" in these places, under the right of freedom of expression, of course. People who are identified with radical Islam come and go in the White House and serve as "advisers" to the president and the secretary of state. During the past generation, the State Department has led the conciliatory and defeatist policy of the United States, which has brought the superpower of the past to be only a paper tiger in the eyes of the Arab and Islamic world.

Since last year, by instructions from above, all American investigative authorities - CIA, FBI and others - have been forbidden to ask people whom they are investigating questions about their faith, and all training programs for investigators have undergone censorship by an obscure committee, whose members are not known. Islam, which has an ideological platform for many of the terror activities that were carried out against Americans in the the United States, has ceased to be a matter that can be investigated or to asked about or related to in any way. Thus - for example - the terrorist event at the Fort Hood base (November 2009) in which Nidal Hasan (a Palestinian Muslim) murdered 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded 31, has become "violence in the workplace", and the attempt of a Pakistani to set off a car bomb in Times Square in New York (May 2010) has become a "traffic accident". There are Americans who believe that the attacks of September 11 2001 were unexplained "flight accidents" in the best case, and a conspiracy of the CIA in the worst case. Accuse a Muslim of terror? G-d forbid, because this is a collective accusation; it is not "politically correct" and the Muslims might be insulted or even become irritated.

The ignorance of the administration in the eyes of the Middle East has been proven over the past three years, when more than once, people of the government issued statements such as, "The Muslim Brotherhood is mainly a secular movement", "Iran can be persuaded by diplomatic means to stop enriching uranium", "There is no proof of the existence of a military nuclear program in Iran" and "Islam is a religion of peace". When the heads of the American government speak thus, the Muslim Brotherhood on the Sunni side of Islam, and the Iranians on the Shi'a side, know that they have nothing to worry about. The "Great Satan" has lost its teeth and its will to use its horns. Usama bin Laden is gone, but his ideology is alive and kicking in the hearts of far too many people, in the world in general and in the United States in particular. Ask Shaikh Awlaki.

The processes of erosion that American society is undergoing are clear: On the day that the United States ambassador was murdered in Libya it was mostly the news programs that dealt with it, but interspersed with these, it was business as usual: shallow reality shows, cooking programs, interviews about trivial matters, and of course, programs dealing with business and the stock market. The fact that the sovereignty of the United States had been violated in the break-in of the embassy, and the terrible murder of the United States ambassador, were not enough to shake the United States from its routine of "eat, drink and be merry".

The United States is quickly losing its will to defend its values, and in the Middle East this fact is clearly evident: The Kuwaiti parliament held a meeting on the subject a year ago: "Should Kuwait become part of Iran or not?" The discussion was based on two assumptions: One is that the day may come when Iran may try to take over Kuwait either militarily or by "persuasion", and the second is that in the situation of ideological weakness that characterizes the United States, and the economic crisis which is burdening Europe and the United States, there is no chance that the Western world will again arrive with all of its armies to rescue Kuwait from conquest, as was done in January 1991. Therefore Kuwait is today considering whether to join with Iran, in order to spare itself from the horrors of war and the suffering of occupation, and to achieve better conditions by willingly joining with Iran. Then what would happen with the Kuwaiti oil? Would the United States honor the "free will" of Kuwait to join Iran? And what would happen afterward to the other Emirates?

The conclusion that Israel must draw from all of this is clear: It's security must not depend on the ever-dissipating American determination, because some Americans who determine policy have the tendency to throw their friends - as in the case of Mubarak - under the bus. There are more than a few people in the American political community who are not at all convinced that Israel's existence serves the interests of the United States, and especially if their support of Israel might anger the Muslims. Therefore, Israel must place before her neighbors a real, concrete and credible threat, because in the Middle East peace is given only to those who can not be vanquished, and freedom is given only to him who is ready to fight for it. The Middle East is no place for bleeding hearts, and especially those whose glory has passed and is no more. The Arab and Islamic world knows how to appreciate and honor only those who honor themselves, who know how to draw a clear red line and then be willing to battle anyone who desires to harm them, to go to battle in order to guard the freedom of their region and their global glory.

However, the malaise of the United States is not terminal: In the times of Ronald Reagan, George Bush the father and George W. Bush the son, there was in the United States a different image, because then at least, there was the will to cope with the problem-makers, not to appease them and not to surrender to them. Those were the days and those were the people. Are there any left like these? Where are they?

===============

Dr. Kedar is available for lectures in the U.S. and CanadaDr. Mordechai Kedar (Mordechai.Kedar@biu.ac.il) is an Israeli scholar of Arabic and Islam, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University and the director of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. He specializes in Islamic ideology and movements, the political discourse of Arab countries, the Arabic mass media, and the Syrian domestic arena.

Source: The article is published in the framework of the Center for the Study of the Middle East and Islam (under formation), Bar Ilan University, Israel. Also published in Makor Rishon, a Hebrew weekly newspaper.

What
if there was one historical figure that just simply could not be
lampooned? I’m not talking about a George Orwell book now. I’m talking
about reality. What if people in the free world, who had the right to
free speech, would not dare lampoon this figure, because so many people
on the planet had become brainwashed into thinking he was a “prophet”?
Maybe this seems just too mind-numblingly absurd to even entertain, but
what if – what if the fear that these people would be offended, and then
hurt you, or kill you, kept everyone silent – kept everyone afraid to
poke fun at the imaginary holy man and to shudder in fear at the thought
of exercising their right to free speech?
Is there even a word for something so absurd, so incredibly
ridiculous? In fact there is. It is called being “Sharia-compliant.”

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2012: “Sharia and the Constitution”
was the name of the panel I was speaking on the night before, in Orange
County, California. I spent the night at a motel and got on to the
freeway for a long drive home, after the traffic had let up.

A friend called and we started to discuss how the event had gone the
night before. “It had gone well, but we should be speaking to much
bigger audiences,” I said. “What’s it going to take?” she asked.
“Seriously, what’s it going to take for people in America to realize
that we aren’t all paranoid nutcases for pointing out that political
Islam is at war with us and on the rise?”
Good question.

I thought about this and answered:

Hate to say it, but probably another 9/11.
And come to think of it, Egypt has about enough rope to hang itself
with, having elected a terrorist organization – The Muslim Brotherhood
– to run their country. Sooner or later, the other shoe is going to
drop, and when it does, perhaps people will rise from their slumber.
It’s just a matter of time before the Islamists in Egypt go off their
meds and start demanding the usual death to America kind of stuff.

There was an uneasy moment of laughter, followed by a mutual realization that this was probably indeed true.

When I got off at my exit in Los Angeles, I said goodbye and we hung
up. I turned on a talk radio program and listened, when I heard someone
say that Islamic protesters were storming the embassy in Egypt. Muslim
men had scaled the sides of the embassy and broken in. Crowds shook
their fists yelling, “Death to America!” There was rioting. I turned
up the volume. This was turning into one of those days where it just
sucks to be right. Everything I had been saying was going to happen as
the result of the “Arab Spring” was beginning to happen. Then things
took an even worse turn, as the radio voice said, “… protesting an
anti-Islam filmmaker in Los Angeles…” Uh-oh.

I am the only filmmaker I know of in Southern California who is known
for expressing views which are critical of Islamic law. Maybe there
were other filmmakers who were opposed to political Islam as well, but I
was the only one writing articles about it, going onto the radio,
television and speaking out at public events. This could not be good.

When I got home, I sat down in front of the computer to try to find
out more about what was going on. The media was claiming that a YouTube
video called “The Innocence of Muslims” had sparked all of this rage.

So I found the video on YouTube.
It didn’t (yet) have that many views. The production quality was
dismally awful. The storyline was incoherent and it promised to be a
“trailer” for an upcoming Hollywood film. There is a saying in
Hollywood that showbiz is about 90 percent delusion. Still, there is no
way any Hollywood studio would be connected to something like this.

The news went on to say the “film” was made either by an
Israeli-American or a Coptic Christian. This was about the time my
bullshit detector went off. How convenient, I thought, for the
Islamists in Egypt – especially given that this cheesy video had been up
on YouTube already for several weeks, at least. Clearly, this “film
mocking the prophet” was being used as a false pretext for a newly
emboldened Islamist movement to strike at an American target at an
appointed time – the anniversary of 9/11.

And then Libya was hit, and the rest is history – history still very much in the making.
The real filmmaker was soon identified as a man calling himself “Sam
Bacile.” I received phone calls from members of the press asking me if I
was Sam Bacile. I said no. They asked if I had heard of him. I had
not. And no one in the Western media printed anything about me as being
in any way connected to this project. By now, most reporters I’ve
spoken to know that when it comes to speaking out against political
Islam, I don’t hold back. And if I had made a movie that was critical
of Mohammed, I’d have said so. I’m not opposed to “mocking the
prophet.” I’m opposed to making bad movies.

I have received death threats from Muslims before. I even published a handful of them in my last article, “The True Face of Facebook.” But nothing could have prepared me for what was about to come.

I was suddenly being hit with wave after wave of death threats from
members of the Religion of Peace. I’ve taken the liberty to publish a
few of them for you below, complete with the name of each person who is
threatening me and a link to their Facebook account.

As of the time that this article was published, Facebook continues to
receive countless complaints about the death threats, but refuses to
take any action whatsoever. After all, that might be offensive to
Muslims. Instead, Facebook once again locked me out of my own account.

Now this could just be a coincidence, that this publicly traded
company has blocked my account the very moment an international
newspaper, The Guardian UK (hard-Left turn ahead), released an article,
smearing the entire counter-jihad movement as paranoid lunatics. This
article did of course point out that I was reaching hundreds of
thousands of people per week on Facebook with criticisms of political
Islam.

So, I submit for your review, some of the love letters I have recently received from the Religion of Peace:

Anyway, someone has to come up with this strategy of coming after me
using digital media, and work at fanning the flames. Someone has to
want to shut me up pretty badly. And of course, what better way for
Islamists to silence one of their critics than to put your name out on
the street, saying you have “mocked the prophet” (punishable under
Islamic law by death)? And what better time than now?

Sheila Masaji, of TheAmericanMuslim.org,
has used this opportunity to put my name out on the street, to
jihadists here in America. Now let’s keep this in mind: according to
Islam, “jihad” is a word with essentially two meanings. One refers to
an inward spiritual struggle. The other is fighting against the enemies
of Islam, by way of the sword. Jihad is the duty of all Muslims, as
commanded by Allah. So by running an article on a blog called “The
American Muslim,” Sheila Masaji, and the terrorists she defends, are clearly stepping up their game. Could it be that they are trying to shoot the messenger?

Since I posted many of the death threats from Muslims on my Facebook
wall, as a sign that I am not scared, the Islamists added a new
dimension to their venture against me. The articles written for
American Muslims name me as part of a conspiracy to make this sloppy film, “The Innocence of Muslims” – thus forcing Islamists to have no choice but to riot, rape and kill.

Sheila Masaji must know I had nothing to do with the film. Her
articles in the past are usually sourced with links, not to factual
sources, but to more of her own articles. This devout Muslim is a
professional liar for Islam. And Islam does not just allow lying for
Allah’s cause, it demands it. The practice is known as “taqiyya.”
Naturally, LoonWatch.com loves her.

Here are two articles Sheila Masaji has put up so far, attempting to
link me and some of my friends (and some people whom I don’t know) to
the making of the “film”:

Not surprisingly, many of the hard Left-blogs are singing backup.
The death threats that have come from American Muslims since the
publishing of those articles, I will not publish at this time. The
threat to my life has been deemed serious. So naturally the police
department lost the report I filed. After what felt like an eternity,
as the FBI tried to locate that report, and then begin the long process
of filing their own report, I decided to go ahead and publish this
article, complete with many of the death threats, should something
happen to me while the federal government is fumbling with paperwork. I
have been relocated to a safe house and am in dialogue with the FBI. I
would like to report that the proper authorities have issued the
appropriate warrants and are taking steps to identify and attempt to
capture the numerous Muslims who are threatening to kill me for “mocking
the prophet.” But something tells me that Eric Holder is not going to
let that happen. As of this moment, there is paperwork and dialogue.
And nothing stands up to Islamic terrorism like paperwork and dialogue.
Eric Holder’s incompetence and fetish for appeasing radical Islamists
who seek to infiltrate American society have become a national
embarrassment. But I’m open to being pleasantly surprised. In the
meantime, I’m filing my report with the media.

Meanwhile, the narrative
overseas has narrowed even more. Someone has been very busy, planting
stories. Several Muslim newspapers and blogs are now reporting that I
alone am the filmmaker who “mocked the prophet.” And it is perhaps no
coincidence that they are all more or less using variations of the exact
same wording – calling for me to be punished. Under Islamic law
(Sharia) that means death.

EGYPT:
“Prosecutors said they will ask the international police agency,
Interpol, to add the names to its wanted lists. U.S. authorities would
also be contacted, according to prosecutors.”

Never mind the fact that I did not make the film, was not involved in
the making of the film, do not live in an Islamic country under Islamic
law, enjoy the First Amendment right to free speech and, did I mention
that I did not make the film?

Eric Allen Bell, the director of the film, should be
tried by the judicial authorities for such a demeaning act. We cannot
tolerate disrespect to any religion and if we promote such unethical
behavior through media then, instead of peace we will only have
bloodshed on roads, which we are witnessing even today.

Newspapers such as “The Daily Rising Kashmir”
and others like it, also call for me to be punished for blasphemy.
Because, even though I did not make the film, whoever did is clearly at
fault for just making the Islamists riot, rape and murder in the name of
Allah. Who needs accountability anymore if all you have to do is to
say you are offended? This rationale of course will only work if you are
a member of the Religion of Peace.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation, or the OIC, a group of about
57 Islamic countries, is demanding an international law which forbids
the “mocking” of any religion or prophet. And believe it or not, this
ridiculous demand is being taken seriously, as discussions are taking
place between the OIC and their most powerful friend, the Obama
administration.
Interestingly enough, Abdou Kattih, the VP of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, whom I have exposed for being aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood in America, has also stated publicly:

“As Muslims, we ask for a clear international law, sponsored by the United Nations, that prevents mocking religions or prophets.”

And yet to most Americans still, the term “Creeping Sharia” sounds
paranoid. And things like evidence are mostly dismissed as “hate
speech.” Meanwhile, Iranian Muslim leaders are complaining that, had
they just followed through with their death fatwa against Salman Rushdie
for writing “The Satanic Verses,” none of this “mocking of the prophet”
would be going on now. An example would have been made of him, and the
world would submit to Sharia law and no longer mock the prophet.

So why am I in a safe house, needing protection from the FBI? Is it because it was recently announced that “Iran will track down those who made anti-Islam film”? Psychotic suggestions such as these come right from the Supreme Leader himself, in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Am I in hiding because Egyptian Muslim leaders are demanding the deaths
of the filmmakers? Is it the attempt to inflame Muslims around the
world, using malicious and deceptive reporting in Muslim blogs, to want
to kill me? Is it the fact that I receive at least one death threat
from a Muslim every hour? Or has LoonWatch.com got it right, that I’m
just really starved for attention and Islam is peace?

It is stated in the Islamic scripture over 90 times that Mohammed is
the example by which all Muslims are to follow and imitate. In those
same Islamic scriptures, Mohammed says things often like, “I have been
made victorious through terror” and “terrorize the unbelievers.”
Examples such as these are in no short supply, and anyone doing a simple Google search can find such passages, supported by chapter and verse.

Clearly the demands are being made, loud and clear, that someone be
punished for “mocking the prophet.” Never mind that in America we enjoy
the right to free speech. Never mind that the First Amendment is
designed, not to protect popular speech which needs no protection, but
to protect unpopular speech. Nonetheless, Islam demands that someone be
punished. “Look what you made us do” the Religion of Peace seems to
be saying, as they storm embassies and riot in at least 20 countries so
far. Look at what your free speech made us do.

Facebook has taken down the page “Sharia War on Women” but left up
the page “Death to Israel.” This willing submission to Islamic Law is
the result of fear, fear of the consequences of offending Muslims. By
design, Facebook has placed its 900 million members into a
“sharia-compliant” state. THIS is what is meant by the term “Creeping
Sharia.” Or maybe there is a perfectly logical explanation to
Facebook’s inability to locate their spine which has nothing to do with
being scared to death of having Muslims storm their offices overseas.

How much longer will our “leaders” and unprincipled reporters become
paralyzed by fear, every time some bully tells them to shut up and do as
they are told. Submit is what they are told to do. And submission is
what we see them doing. By the way, the meaning of the word “Islam” is
“submission.” And on that note, here is a statement which was just
issued from Al Qaeda.

Call to kill Americans:
“We encourage all Muslims to continue to demonstrate and escalate their
protests … and to kill their (American) ambassadors and representatives
or to expel them to cleanse our land from their wickedness,” said the
statement from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

So what does it mean to be Sharia-compliant? Sharia demands that
Islam be first. Islam should receive special treatment. For instance,
does Facebook know that they have made 900,000,000 of their members
Sharia-compliant? Perhaps not. But when the Obama administration
apologizes repeatedly for our First Amendment, they are indeed very much
being Sharia-compliant.

Is it possible that a man who spent his early years growing up in a
Muslim country, indoctrinated while attending Muslims schools, raised in
his early years as a Muslim by Muslims – is it possible that such a man
would not know that he is being Sharia-compliant? You decide.

As for me, I may be in hiding as the Religion of Peace attempts to
take my life – for now – but I will not be silenced. Sharia law forbids
free speech. I demand it. And I will not back down.

With zero prospect of his policy succeeding, Obama insists on Israeli inaction, even as Iran races to close the window of opportunity for any successful attack. Not since its birth six decades ago has Israel been so cast adrift by its closest ally.

Photo: REUTERS

WASHINGTON – There are two positions one can take regarding the Iranian nuclear program: (a) it doesn’t matter, we can deter them, or (b) it does matter, we must stop them.

In my view, the first position - that we can contain Iran as we did the Soviet Union - is totally wrong, a product of wishful thinking and misread history. But at least it’s internally coherent.

What is incoherent is President Obama’s position. He declares the Iranian program intolerable - “I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” - yet stands by as Iran rapidly approaches nuclearization.

A policy so incoherent, so knowingly and obviously contradictory, is a declaration of weakness and passivity. And this, as Anthony Cordesman, James Phillips and others have argued, can increase the chance of war. It creates, writes Cordesman, “the same conditions that helped trigger World War II - years of negotiations and threats, where the threats failed to be taken seriously until war became all too real.”

This has precipitated the current US-Israeli crisis, sharpened by the president’s rebuff of the Israeli prime minister’s request for a meeting during his upcoming US visit. Ominous new developments; no Obama response. Alarm bells going off everywhere; Obama plays deaf.

The old arguments, old excuses, old pretensions have become ridiculous:

(1) Sanctions.

The director of national intelligence testified to Congress at the beginning of the year that they had zero effect in slowing the nuclear program. Now the International Atomic Energy Agency reports (August 30) that the Iranian nuclear program, far from slowing, is actually accelerating. Iran has doubled the number of high-speed centrifuges at Fordow, the facility outside Qom built into a mountain to make it impregnable to air attack.

This week, the IAEA reported Iranian advances in calculating the explosive power of an atomic warhead. It noted once again Iran’s refusal to allow inspection of its weapons testing facility at Parchin, and cited satellite evidence of Iranian attempts to clean up and hide what’s gone on there.

The administration’s ritual response is that it has imposed the toughest sanctions ever. So what? They’re a means, not an end. And they’ve had no effect on the nuclear program.

(2) Negotiations.

The latest, supposedly last-ditch round of talks in Istanbul, Baghdad, then Moscow has completely collapsed. The West even conceded to Iran the right to enrich - shattering a decade-long consensus and six Security Council resolutions demanding its cessation.

Iran’s response? Contemptuous rejection.

Why not? The mullahs have strung Obama along for more than three years and still see no credible threat emanating from the one country that could disarm them.

(3) Diplomatic isolation.

The administration boasts that Iran is becoming increasingly isolated. Really? Just two weeks ago, 120 nations showed up in Tehran for a meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement - against US entreaties not to attend. Even the UN secretary-general attended - after the administration implored him not to.

Which shows you what American entreaties are worth today. And the farcical nature of Iran’s alleged isolation.

The Obama policy is in shambles. Which is why Cordesman argues that the only way to prevent a nuclear Iran without war is to establish a credible military threat to make Iran recalculate and reconsider. That means US red lines: deadlines beyond which Washington will not allow itself to be strung, as well as benchmark actions that would trigger a response, such as the further hardening of Iran’s nuclear facilities to the point of invulnerability and, therefore, irreversibility.

Which made all the more shocking Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s dismissal last Sunday of the very notion of any US red lines. No deadlines. No brightline action beyond which Iran must not go. The sleeping giant continues to slumber. And to wait. As the administration likes to put it, “for Iran to live up to its international obligations.”

This is beyond feckless. The Obama policy is a double game: a rhetorical commitment to stopping Iran, yet real-life actions that everyone understands will allow Iran to go nuclear.

Yet at the same time that it does nothing, the administration warns Israel sternly, repeatedly, publicly, even threateningly not to strike the Iranian nuclear program. With zero prospect of his policy succeeding, Obama insists on Israeli inaction, even as Iran races to close the window of opportunity for any successful attack.

Not since its birth six decades ago has Israel been so cast adrift by its closest ally.

Abbas's media, spokesmen and
mosque imams have radicalized Palestinians to the point where many of
them are no longer prepared to hear about peace. The conflict in the
Middle East is not over a settlement or a checkpoint. Rather this is a
conflict over the very existence of Israel.

The day the video was released containing US Republican presidential
candidate Mitt Romney's remarks that the "Palestinians are not
interested whatsoever in peace," the PLO announced that it was studying
the possibility of canceling the Oslo Accords.

The PLO announcement about rescinding the Oslo Accords — in addition
to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's continued refusal to
resume peace talks with Israel -- came after two days of discussions
headed by Abbas, and show Romney's assessment to be correct.

For the past three years, Abbas has used the issue of settlements,
initiated by the current US Obama administration, as an excuse to stay
away from the negotiating table with Israel. Until then, the settlements
did not seem to bother Abbas or his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, who
conducted peace talks with successive Israeli governments while
construction in the settlements continued.
Abbas decided to suspend the peace talks with the Israeli government
because he prefers to impose a solution on Israel rather than achieving
one through negotiations.

Romney is also correct in assuming that Palestinians remain "committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel."

The last time Palestinians held a free and fair election, in January
2006, a majority of Palestinians voted for Hamas, the radical Islamic
movement committed to the destruction of Israel.

True, many Palestinians voted for Hamas because they wanted to punish
Abbas's corruption-riddled Fatah faction, but at the end of the day,
the Palestinians knew that they were casting their ballots for a terror
movement that does not hesitate to dispatch suicide bombers and rockets
to kill innocent civilians. Many Palestinians are convinced that Hamas
would score another victory if another free and fair election were held
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip these days.

The Palestinian Authority's declared policy in recent years has been
to promote boycotts of Israel and criminalize all forms of normalization
with Israelis. Abbas and his government have also devoted tremendous
efforts to depict Israel as an apartheid state that must be ostracized
by the rest of the world.

Abbas's media, spokesmen and mosque imams have radicalized
Palestinians to a point where many of them are no longer prepared to
hear about peace with Israel.

Abbas believes that with the help of the UN and other countries, he
will be able to extract more concessions from Israel than if he returned
to the negotiating table. Hence his decision to resume his effort to
unilaterally seek UN recognition of a Palestinian state on the pre-1967
lines.

At almost at the same time the Romney video was released, Abbas
announced that he was "determined" to file another request for
membership in the UN during the General Assembly session in New York
later this month.

Romney's prediction that a Palestinian state would pose a threat to
Israel, and his fear of Iran's increased involvement, in the Middle East
are not unjustified. Once Hamas extends its control from the Gaza Strip
to the West Bank, Iran, Sudan and many Islamic terror groups will start
flooding the area with weapons in preparation for jihad [holy war]
against the "Zionist entity."

Were it not for Iran, Hizbollah would be powerless to direct tens of
thousands of rockets toward Israel. Without Iran's support, Hamas would
never have been able to remain in power in the Gaza Strip and acquire
thousands of missiles and rockets. In the future, the Iranians will not
miss an opportunity to set foot in the West Bank.

Anti-Israel sentiments in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and the rest of
the Arab and Islamic countries are so high that Egypt's Muslim
Brotherhood President, Mohamed Morsi, has not had the courage to utter
the word Israel even once since he came to power.

Finally, how can anyone disagree with the position Romney also
espoused toward the "two-state solution"? Hasn't the two-state solution
already been realized? Didn't the Palestinians end up with, not one, but
two states of their own -- one in the Gaza Strip and another in the
West Bank?
Was it Israel's fault that Hamas forced the PLO out of the Gaza Strip
in 2007? Was it Israel's fault that a majority of Palestinians voted in
favor of Hamas and its terrorist agenda a year earlier?

The actions and words of Abbas and his aides over the past three
years prove beyond any doubt that they have chosen to abandon the path
of peace in favor of a huge diplomatic effort to delegitimize Israel in
the eyes of the international community.

Romney should be commended for understanding that the conflict in the
Middle East is not over a settlement or a checkpoint. Rather, this is a
conflict over the very existence of Israel. In the Arab and Islamic
world, there is still a majority of people who have not come to terms
with Israel's right to exist. Unlike Barack Obama, Romney appears to
have understood where the real problem lies.

A sympathizer for jihad is
allowed into the country as part of the "normal" process for of British
applicants, but an opponent of jihad -- a man never convicted of a
crime, and a member of the Dutch parliament -- is blocked from coming.

The official reason for the delay is that Wilders is on the Movement
Alert List, a database of people of security concern to the Australian
government. It means that his application is being held up at the
Department of Immigration headquarters in Canberra while more thorough
security checks are done.
But the real reason for the delay is that the high priests of
Australian multiculturalism want to silence Wilders' warnings about the
tragic failure of multiculturalism in Europe.

Some Australian politicians have effectively admitted that the visa
imbroglio is all about politics and has nothing to do with security.

According to Senator Richard Di Natale, a member of the far-left Greens Party, Wilders is not welcome in Australia.

"We don't want to see Geert Wilders in this country. His views are
not welcome here," Di Natale told the Australian Broadcasting
Corporation. "This country's got a great story when it comes to
multiculturalism, it's part of my own personal story, it's something we
should all be proud of and here we've got a man who is the antithesis of
multiculturalism."

A recent study titled "Secret Saudi Funding of Radical Islamic Groups in Australia"
found that Saudi Arabia is spending billions of dollars to promote
radical Islam in the country, including through the construction of
mosques, schools and Islamic cultural centers. A key Saudi objective is
to prevent Muslim immigrants from integrating into Australian society in
order to promote the establishment of a parallel Muslim society in the
country.

As if to underscore the politically correct calculations delaying
Wilders' visa application, the governing Australian Labour Party swiftly approved a visa for Taji Mustafa,
the British head of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir, a group
notorious for religious intolerance, disdain for Western values and
sympathy for jihad.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard said she would not be revoking Mustafa's
visa and that Hizb ut-Tahrir was not on the government's list of
proscribed terrorist groups.

Wilders had been planning to visit Sydney and Melbourne from October
12 to 21. Although he applied for a visa in late August, the Australian
authorities have still not granted him a visa, and his supporters now
fear he may be refused entry into the country.

His speaking tour of Australia is being organized by a group called the Q Society, a national grassroots organization dedicated to raising awareness about the rise of Islamic Sharia law in Australia.

Q Society Spokesman Andrew Horwood says the organization involves
"ordinary Australians who are concerned about the march of Islam into
this country. We are non-political, we are a secular organization, and
we've seen what's happened in Europe and we're concerned about that. Our
charter is to educate the Australian population about what Australia
will be like in 20 or 30 years' time with Islam if we choose not to
understand it."

The Q Society wants to know why Wilders' staff and security detail
had their visas approved within days, but Wilders' application is still
pending.

Says Horwood: "We find it very strange that a visa is taking so long
to come from a politician of a respected democracy. It should be an
automatic thing. He's coming here to give the advantage of his
knowledge, the advantage of what's happening in Europe, and I cannot see
why it's not an automatic thing: 'yes, you're welcome here.' I cannot
understand why everything has just ground to a halt."
If his visa is approved, Wilders will tell Australians that they will
see the erosion of their cultural values, including freedom of speech,
if they continue to follow multicultural policies that are allowing the
Islamization of the country.

"Multiculturalism, I'm afraid, has been a disaster, but only because
it is being used as a tool to promote Islam," Wilders recently said.

Muslim immigration to Australia has skyrocketed over the past 15
years. According to the 2011 census, there were 476,300 Muslims in
Australia, the most recent year for which government census data is
available. This figure is a 375% jump from 1996, when there were just
over 100,000 Muslims in the country.

The rapid increase in the Muslim population in Australia has been
accompanied by many of the same social and security problems faced by
Europe, where the rise of Islam is transforming the continent beyond
recognition.

Hizb ut-Tahrir seeks to establish a worldwide Islamic Caliphate that
would be ruled by Islamic Sharia law. The group, which has an estimated
one million members, is very active in efforts to promote the spread of
Sharia law in Europe. Hizb ut-Tahrir is also strongly anti-Zionist and
calls for Israel, which it calls an "illegal entity," to be dismantled.

Hizb ut-Tahrir's divisive leader, Taji Mustafa, was invited to
Australia with open arms to address the group's annual conference, which
was held in the Bankstown district of Sydney on September 16. The
official title of the conference was: "Muslims Rise: Caliphate Imminent."

Hizb ut-Tahrir has been accused of inciting riots in Australia to protest the American-made anti-Islam YouTube film called Innocence of Muslims. The group's Australian chapter on September 19 issued an eight-point statement
in which it justified the "praiseworthy" actions of 400 anti-Western
Muslim protesters who clashed with riot police in downtown Sydney on
September 15.

"It is a clear illustration that the major issue with events in
Sydney is not the violence, but the anti-Islamic agenda peddled by media
and politicians," the group said. "We encourage Muslims to continue in
their noble work of resisting Western attacks, accounting the political
establishment and media, and redoubling efforts to establish Islam and
the Caliphate in the Muslim World."

Police arrested and charged eight Muslim protesters with a range of
offenses including assaulting police and resisting arrest. Several
police officers were injured when a protester used the timber pole of a
banner to hit them on the head as they were trying to protect the U.S.
consulate from being stormed.
Australian political commentators have noted the sad irony:
A sympathizer for jihad is allowed into the country as part of the
"normal" process of British applicants, but an opponent of jihad -- a
man never convicted of a crime and a member of the Dutch parliament --
is blocked from coming.

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based
Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook.

We can – and certainly should –
make it clear to the likes of Mohamed Morsi that we can make his job and
his life a lot more difficult than the Salafists can.

It should be clear to almost everyone by now that the rampaging mob
violence against American embassies and consulates in the Middle East
and North Africa last week was not primarily motivated by a video
uploaded to YouTube. Something offensive to Muslims (along with
something offensive to just about everyone else in the world) is posted
on the Internet several times every second, yet massive international
uprisings against this thing or that thing break out only periodically.
Rather than a spontaneous outburst, what we saw last week was a raw
play for political power by radical Salafists. We have seen things like
this before, most notoriously in Tehran after the Iranian revolution.

On November 4, 1979, 52 American diplomats were taken hostage at the
U.S. Embassy in Iran by young supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
who belonged to the so-called Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's
Line. Iran was not yet a theocracy. Khomeini had not consolidated power
after the overthrow of the Shah's government; his Islamist faction still
had to battle it out for control with Iran's liberals and leftists.

Khomeinei may not have orchestrated the takeover personally, but it
was not long before he threw his full support behind it: he realized how
popular the hostage-takers were -- Iranian anti-Americanism was at its
apogee then -- while his proposal for a theocratic constitution was
meeting stiff resistance from his internal enemies. By rallying the
country around the cause of anti-Americanism he was able seriously to
blunt criticism of the domestic agenda. All he had to do was tar his
opponents as secretly pro-American. The deflection worked brilliantly.

The Salafists have just pulled a similar stunt in Egypt. They are
more extreme and therefore less popular than the Muslim Brotherhood
government. By ginning up an anti-American mob and forcing President
Mohamed Morsi, himself a Brotherhood member, to send riot police after
the demonstrators to protect the American Embassy, they were able to
make him look like a tool of the West. When push came to shove, Morsi
ended up siccing the cops on his fellow Egyptians to protect the
interests of the hated "imperialists."

Walter Russell Mead bluntly put it this way: "Moderates who speak
against violence or try to cool matters look like American puppets; this
is the kind of issue the radicals love, and we can expect them to milk
it for all it is worth."

Morsi did not condemn the attack on our embassy in Cairo—or attacks
against us anywhere else—for two days. Nor did his police officers
initially do a thing to stop belligerent rioters who tore down the
American flag and replace with an Al Qaeda banner. Such things would
have appeared "pro-American." Not until President Barack Obama
supposedly yelled at him on the phone did Morsi do his job and order the
authorities to do theirs.

Salafist preachers ginned up a similar mob in Tunisia, although this
time the police responded at once and struggled to keep rioters out of
the embassy. President Moncef Marzouki even sent hundreds of his own
presidential guards to the embassy; unfortunately the walls were
nevertheless breached by militants with Al Qaeda flags.

Salafist gangs have been running amok in Tunisia now for a year, and
the police are already accustomed to battling it out with them in the
streets. Unlike in Egypt where Salafists won 25 percent of the
parliamentary vote, a huge majority of Tunisians finds this extremist
faction repulsive, even terrifying. We shall have to wait to find out if
attacking an American target instead of a local one has boosted the
Salafists' popularity.

The terrorist attack against the American consulate in Benghazi,
Libya, however, clearly backfired -- spectacularly. Protests broke out
all over the country -- not against America or the anti-Mohammad video,
but against terrorism. The Libyan government purged its security chiefs
in Benghazi and has already arrested dozens of suspects.

Cairo is the place where the Salafist onslaught against us was
hatched, and it is the place where it was carried out most effectively.
As it is likely to happen again, the United States will have to do
something about it. Members of Congress are publicly questioning whether
the Egyptian government deserves any more aid. This question is an
excellent start. There is nothing we can do to stop radical Islamists
from framing the United States when they need a wedge issue, but we can
-- and certainly should -- make it clear to the likes of Mohamed Morsi
that we can make his job and his life a lot more difficult than the
Salafists can.